8/16/2010 W9WLB

Weight: 247.2 lbs

Notes: Well as you have figured out I am moving to a two week schedule for the posts due to the fact that there is not much going on in between weeks. With that said let's begin :) I have now had my second fill (up to 6 CC of saline) and I can finally feel the band doing its job. I can't eat much anymore and whatever I do eat is staying in my stomach much longer. However, I am having a funky side effect (waiting on my doc to call me back) in which I am getting extremely nauseated at the end of the day. There are times where I feel like I am going to vomit it gets so bad. I sent my doc an email last night explaining the experience, hopefully he replies soon. I hope he doesn't tell me that I have to have fluid pulled out because I am in Virginia and will be here until Saturday. I am going to stop eating normal foods and switch back to gentle solids and lots of liquids! Up until this minor issue I can honestly say that I have not noticed the LAP-BAND much at all, I had been eating like it too! With this recent fill I am quite aware that this piece of plastic is now living inside me and I have to be very careful not to upset it J The upside is that I am going to lose much more weight and that is why I am going through all of this. Anyhoo, I have to remember that I cannot eat any of the old food that I am used to eating, don’t want that stomach pain around.

Cheers, Louis.

8/1/2010 W7WLB

Weight: 247.4 lbs

Notes: Yippie, the weight is downward trending again :) Anyhoo, I had my two week visit with the doc and they determined (based on my begin hungry all the time, eating much more than I should, and the weight trending upward) that I should have my first fill. The band, when in stalled, has no saline in it and it has a 14cc capacity. They put in 3 cc's and sent me away for 2 weeks to see how much I can eat, what I can tolerate, and most importantly how hungry I am in between meals. Now on to the gritty details of the fill: First they numbed the area with lidocaine which burnt like hell when they first injected it. Next they wait about 1 minute to make sure it gets numb and then they stick this god awful mother of a needle into your gut, through the fat, and then they push it through the dome of the portal and it made an audible "POP". That big needle burnt like hell when she stuck it in, however once in all the pain went away. When she was pushing in the fluid I actually felt something weird inside me and I let out a little gurgle like burp! It was all over within 1 minute so I can't complain too much, it should be noted that I am the worlds biggest baby when it comes to pain like this. After the injection she made me sit there for 5 minutes to make sure all was well then she had me sip a cup of water to make sure it would go down and it did. I was sent home and told to drink only liquids for a day and then one day of mushy food after that. So here I am three days later and I can honestly say there is no difference in how much I can eat and how long I stay hungry afterwards. I am being extra careful with what I eat and how much of it I send into my mouth. I want to keep losing weight even if the band is not fully working yet, it could take months before they have it tuned just right. Anyhow, that is all I have to say for now.

Cheers, Louis.

7/25/2010 W6WLB

Weight: 249 lbs

Notes:

Outside of the fact that my weight is slowly creeping upward, this past week was business as usual (trying to figure out what to eat and how much of it is the right amount). Over the last two weeks I have gained about 1/4 lb or less per week, this is in stark contrast to my having lost about 2-3 lbs each of the several weeks prior. I can say that this is happening because my stomach is obviously not swollen anymore, and given the fact that the band is wide open things are almost identical to prior to my having the weight loss surgery. I say almost identical because there are some small changes that remain even with the swelling gone. I still have to take small bites and chew my food well; otherwise I will be in a world of hurt. Also, there is an upper limit on how much food I can eat before I feel uncomfortable. That upper limit is still much higher than what I can expect to eat once the band is adjusted optimally. I am struggling once again with food choices and with my demons at night. The good news is that sugar free ice pops and fudgesicles usually save my ass and keep me from eating my son’s cookies and/or any little treats we keep around for him. More good news is that I am going in on Thursday for my 2 week visit with the doc and I am expecting that they will give me my first (of many) fill. Also worth mentioning is that my stomach has reacted negatively to certain foods, I was under the impression that this surgery would not alter what I can and cannot tolerate as it relates to food? Yesterday I had a hamburger with mustard and pickles; I ended up with cramps (sort of like diarrhea cramps). I ate the thing slowly and I made sure I chewed it quite well so I can’t blame it on food getting stuck (which I would not expect anyway given that the band is wide open). With all that said tomorrow is a new day and any transgressions that may have occurred this past week are behind me and I am not looking back, only forward. I may trip and fall but I am always going to get back up and keep on fighting.

Cheers, Louis.

7/18/2010 W5WLB

Weight: 248.8 lbs

Notes: Last week I saw the nurse practioner and she told me I could start on soft foods, I informed her I was already on soft foods. I go back in next week and they will determine then whether or not I get my first fill. I can tell you right now that I am going to gun for the fill because I am starting to be hungry all the time and I can certainy eat quite a bit more than I could two weeks ago. I guess all the swelling is down which means whatever I eat falls right into the big stomach and that is why I am always hungry. On more positive note I started back on the gym last week and that has been qoing quite well. I do 30 minutes on the treadmill and thenI do weight training, gotta get the metabolism up :) Outside of the words I just put to e-print there really isn't much more to report. I have been feeling great and there is no indication that I have this piece of plastic in my body. Well, sorry I don't have more but to be honest I have been getting on with other areas of my life like finding work, building my boy a two massive play house, and simply enjoying my time off.

Cheers, Louis.

7/13/2010 W4WLB

Weight: 248.2 lbs

Notes: The past week was a good week as it relates to the Band, eating, food, etc.
I think my stomach is just about all done being swollen, meaning I can eat as much as want if I wanted to do such a thing. The only thing I need to be careful of is the "big bite." If I take too big a bite it gets hung up in my small stomach for a brief moment before falling through the stoma and into the large stomach. This, as you recall with the hot dog about 1 1/2 weeks back, can be painful and miserable. I did it this morning with my egg white omelet and dry wheat toast. I neglected to chew properly (again, a sign of things returning to normal and my forgetting that I have a Lap-Band) and swallowed a lumpy piece of dry wheat toast and "WHOA"! It was not as bad as the hot dog incident but it did cause me to take pause. I have to never forget that I must always take small bites and chew the hell out of it! This will especially be important when the band is actually turned on, a.k.a filled to the proper tightness, cuz if I swallow food that is too big it will not make it past the stoma (about the size of a regular M&M candy). Speaking of which I see the doc on Thursday, I am expecting him to tell me that it is OK to start on regular food (what I can tolerate), should I tell him that about half of my daily food has been regular (non liquid diet stuff) food for about the past week? I will tell him, no use lying cuz lying ain't gonna cut it when you have to face down your demons. One thing I would like to talk about is something that happened this weekend. Now keep in mind that I m down about 3lbs since last week so I am doing everything right. However, this past Saturday night while up in Vermont I decided to have a cookie, just one I told myself, well that led to another and before I knew it I felt really bad for eating a bunch of shite food. The lesson I walked away with is that, although one or two cookies in of themselves is not bad, I have to stay away from that food all together! When you have 43 years of bad food behavior under your belt, and you also have an eating disorder (no fooling myself here, I have a food addiction) you cannot be around bad food, you cannot sample bad food, you probably should not talk about bad food. It is no different from an alcoholic and booze, it is in their best interest to stay away from everything that remotely reminds them of alcohol. Some good news, well I consider it good news, I am still have not found a job (the bad component leading up to the good news), but I am pleased to report no stress eating whatsoever! I am actually getting used to having a low grade hunger all the time. Once the Band is properly tuned the low grade hunger will go away cuz it will keep food in my small stomach for about 2-4 hours. Right now it is falling straight into my big stomach, and given the amount of food I eat daily, I am left pretty much hungry all the time. I cannot wait to begin the filling process of the Band!

Anyhoo, gotta go read and then get some sleep.

Cheers, Louis.

7/2/2010 W3WLB

Weight: 252.8 lbs

Notes:

Well here I am into week three with the LAP-BAND. This past week has seen much progress for me; all that complaining I did over gas pain is now over. I have not had any pains at all; I am glad that is all gone. This past Thursday my staples were removed, painless and over within 15 seconds J The doc weighed me and was impressed with my weight loss to date especially given that the band is not even turned on yet. He told me that my success so far is a good indicator that I will be very successful with the band moving forward. On a side not I was laid off this week, I mention this only because I did not resort to food to cheer me up. I new it was coming and although I did have a small period of morning (3/4 day) by the time the layoff came I was actually relieved. The job was toxic and it caused me to stress eat at times, not good! Anyhoo, I am now on the phase IV diet which means I can have pureed foods including meat. I refuse to eat pureed food and/or baby food as recommended by the doc. I will stick with protein shakes and yogurt for the next 1 ½ weeks thank you very much. I have to admit that I have cheated a few times by eating normal food, albeit small amounts, because I long for some normalcy in my diet. Also, today I got cocky and tried eating a hot dog with the bun. I forget (for about 15 seconds) that whatever I eat it has to be in small bites because although that band is not tightened yet my stomach is still kinda swollen. Anyhow, I took one normal size bite of the hot dog, chewed it well swallowed and did not feel so good. Being a dumb ass I did the same thing again about 15 seconds later and I thought I was going to die. Simply put those two bites (about ½ normal size hot dog) filled my new stomach to about 115% its capacity and it hurt like hell for about 5 minutes, I actually though I was going to take a heart attack it hurt so bad. I was preying I would puke but the food would not come backup. Needless to say I learned a profound lesson today. After the pain finally went away I did not eat another thing, nor did I have the desire, for about 6 hours. Even drinking water (doing yard work) made my stomach hurt. Just based on that I feel good that the band is going to help me achieve my weight goal, which by the way is 190lbs. Only 62 lbs more to go J

Well folks that is all at this point, things are not so exciting anymore as I learn to eat a whole different way. I am taking this day by day and I look forward to success.

Talk to you in 1 week.

Cheers, Louis.

6/27/2010 W2WLB

Weight: 255.2 lbs

Notes:

Ok, so the daily blog entry thing is getting to be boring. I am going to now roll it all up to a weekly post which will occur on Sunday's.

Nothing noteworthy to mention today outside of the fact that I overdid it and got sick. Lot's of walking at the zoo in the hot sun almost took me out. I actually came to within hair of puking which is not a good thing given the fact that my band has just been set! Anyhoo, check in next Sunday for the week's events! Also, W1WLB = Week 1 with Lap Band. New notation.

L